Local News in Brief : Boy Won’t Testify in McMartin Case

The 7-year-old boy whose molestation accounts triggered the McMartin Pre-School case five years ago will not testify at the trial, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge William Pounders said Friday. Instead, one count of sexual abuse by defendant Raymond Buckey will be supported solely by testimony from two physicians and a jail-house informant.

Pounders interviewed the boy, who was 2 1/2 years old at the time of the alleged crime, in Manhattan Beach last week and invited him to visit his courtroom and to watch a trial in progress.

After meeting again with the child and attorneys for all sides in chambers Friday, Pounders said he was satisfied that there is “no way to induce him to testify and no way to obtain his testimony,” although a variety of alternatives to conventional courtroom testimony were explored.

The boy said he did not like the McMartin school and would not talk about the “bad things” that allegedly happened there, or about his mother and brother, who have both recently died, according to sources close to the case.